Patrick O'Brian - The Ionian mission

'In English law it is a capital offence to stop His Majesty's mails: by extension the stopping of any object marked post paid is also mortal. And indeed the man who stops a cannon-ball is unlikely to survive.'

'So it was a joke?'

'Just so.'

'A joke at a time like this, good God forgive us! Such a man would be facetious at his father's burial.'

In the last few minutes the ships had approached to within random shot, the Turks on Surprise's starboard bow holding their course without the slightest deviation, with the Kitabi abreast of the Torgud, a quarter of a mile to leeward. Bonden, the captain of the gun, kept the starboard chaser steadily trained on the Torgud's bows, perpetually shifting it with his handspike. They were drawing together at a combined speed of ten miles an hour, and just before they came to point-blank range the silence was ripped apart by a great screaming blast of Turkish trumpets, harsh and shrill.

'God, how it lifts your heart,' said Jack, and he gave the orders 'Colours at the fore and main.' With his glass he watched the crowded Turkish deck: saw the man at the halyards, followed the flags as they ran up in reply, and on seeing the regular Turkish ensign break out he reflected, 'He thinks we do not know yet: perhaps he hopes to slip by. But his guns are manned,' and aloud he called 'Professor Graham, pray come and stand by me. Mr Gill, wear round to the starboard tack and lay me within pistol-shot of his starboard side.'

Now high seamanship showed its splendid powers: the sail-trimmer sprang from their guns; forecourse, staysails and jibs flashed out; the frigate leapt forward like a spurred horse and made her quick tight turn, as Jack knew she would do, bringing her larboard guns to bear when the Turks were still expecting her on the other side.

'Shiver the foretopsail,' called Jack, with his eye on the Torgnd's quarterdeck and her burly captain right under his Ice. 'Mr Graham, call out to him that he must surrender directly. Larboard guns stand by.'

Graham shouted loud and clear. Jack saw Mustapha's red beard part in a white gleam as he roared back his answer, a long answer.

'In effect he refuses,' said Graham.

'Fire.'

The Surprise's entire broadside went off in a single explosion that shook both ships from truck to keelson and for a moment deadened the air; and now in the thick smoke rolling to leeward over the Torgud began the great hammering, red flashes in the gloom, iron crashing into the hulls on either side or howling overhead, an enormous all-pervading din, with ropes parting, blocks falling, jagged pieces of wood struck from the rails, the bulwark, the decks, and whistling across. After their hesitant start, they being caught on the wrong foot, the Turks fired hard and fast, though with no attempt at regularity, and the first shot of their starboard thirty-six-pounder tore a great gap in the hammocks, scored an eighteen-inch groove in the mainmast yet extraordinarily killed no men. But if the Torgud was firing pretty well or at least pretty fast, the Surprise was excelling herself: now that the broadsides were no longer simultaneous, the guns being out of step after the third or fourth discharge, it was hard to be sure, but judging by number seven, just under him, they were achieving something hke a round in seventy seconds, while the quarterdeck carronades were doing even better; and Jack was very sure that their aim was a great deal truer than the Turks'. Glancing to windward he saw a wide area of sea torn up by Turkish grape and round-shot that must have missed by as much as twenty or thirty yards, and then as he paced up and down he stared to leeward, trying to pierce the smoke: 'I wonder the Turk bears it so long,' he said, and as he spoke he saw the Torgud's topsails bracing round as she edged away to join the Kitabi to leeward. He caught the master's eye: Gill nodded - he was already following the movement.

After a few minutes of this gradual turn the smoke would blow away ahead and the sharpshooters would have a chance. He bent to his youngsters, and shouting loud through the uproar and the general deafness that affected all hands he said, 'Mr Calamy, jump up to the tops and tell them to annoy the Turk's thirty-six-pounder. Mr Williamson, tell Mr Mowett and Mr Honey we are reducing the charges up here by a third. Mr Pullings, make it so.'

At this furious rate of fire the guns heated excessively and they kicked with even greater force when they went off: indeed, as he moved towards the taffrail, trying to see through the smoke, one of the quarterdeck carronades did in fact break its breeching and overset.

As he bent to snub a trailing side-tackle the waft of the thirty-six-pound ball sweeping over the deck a foot from his head made him stagger; and now, as the iron hail beat furiously on and about the Surprise, ball, grape and bar flying through the continuous thunder, with the crackle of musketry above it, there was a new note. The Torgud, with the Surprise following her, had edged down much closer to the Kitabi, and now the Kitabi opened with her shrill twelve-pounders. Up until this point the Surprise had not suffered badly, except perhaps in her hull; but this present hail knocked one of the forward guns half across the deck, striking it on its own recoil and maiming three of its crew, and again the thirty-six-pounder roared out: its great crash was followed by a screaming below that for two minutes pierced even the united gunfire. And now a bloody trail on the deck showed where the wounded were carried down to the orlop.

Yet the frigate's fire scarcely slackened from its first tremendous pace: powder and shot ran smoothly up from the magazines, the gun-teams rattled their massive pieces in and out with a magnificent zeal, sponging, loading, ramming, heaving up and firing with a racing coordination that it was a pleasure to watch. Although it was still impossible to sec at all clearly Jack was sure that they must already have mauled the Torgud very severely; she was certainly not firing so fast nor from so many guns, and he was expecting her to wear in the smoke, either to run or to present her undamaged larboard broadside, when he heard the fierce harsh trumpets bray out again. The Torgud was going to board.

'Grape,' he said to Pullings and his messengers, and very loud, 'Sail-trimmers stand by.' The Torgud's fire died away except for her bow guns; the smoke cleared, and there she was, turning into the wind, steering straight for the Surprise, her bowsprit and even her jibboom crowded with people, willing to take the risk of a raking fire for the sake of boarding. 'Wait for it,' cried Jack. To tack his ship before the Turk could run her aboard, to tack her in so short a space of time and sea as though she were a cutter, was appallingly dangerous; but he knew her through and through, and as he calculated the wind's strength, the ship's impetus, and the living force of the water he called again, 'Wait for it. Wait. Fire.' And then the second his voice could be heard, 'Hands about ship.'

The Surprise came about, but only just: the Torgud did not. She lay there, taken aback; and as they passed, the Surprises cheering like maniacs, Jack saw that the storm of grape had cleared her head of men, a most shocking butchery.

'Warm work, Professor,' he said to Graham in the momentary pause.

'Is it, indeed? This is my first naval battle of any consequence.'

'Quite warm, I assure you: but the Turks cannot keep it up. That is the disadvantage of your brass guns-If you keep on firing at this rate, they melt. They are pretty, to be sure; but they cannot keep it up. Mr Gill, we will lie on her larboard quarter, if you please, and rake her from there.'

The Torgud, falling off, had put before the wind, and now the Surprise bore up and made sail in pursuit; no guns but the bow-chaser could be trained round far enough to bear, and all up and down the ship men straightened and stood easy. Some went to the scuttle-butts to drink or dash the water in their faces; most were stripped to the waist, shining with sweat; all were in tearing spirits. At one of the quarterdeck carronades a young fellow was showing his mates a lost finger. 'I never noticed it," he kept saying. 'Never noticed it go at all.'